Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo is a book about a teenage girl named Lily Hu, who lives in Chinatown(in San Francisco) in the 1950s. Lily is a senior in high school who is fascinated by space and science. She keeps pictures of space in her room along with a photo she tore from a book of a mysterious person named Tommy Andrews. Her childhood best friend Shirley is a bit more typical when it comes to teenage girl interests but they still get along well. At least until Lily becomes friends with a classmate(Kath), who also shares some interests that were considered boyish at the time. 

As Lily and Kath become closer, Kath introduces Lily to a club called the “Telegraph Club”, which they use fake IDs to get into. This club is where Tommy Andrews performs songs. What makes Tommy’s act so unique is that she is a woman who dresses as a man during her performances. The Telegraph Club is a Lesbian club where mostly women go to socialize, drink, and enjoy live music. Lily going to this club would already be a very risky choice considering the time period but on top of that because she is Chinese American and her parents are immigrants her family would be especially at risk. Her father(Joseph) has told the family that people in his job(he is a doctor) are being investigated for suspected ties to communism. Joseph Hu worries that he will be falsely accused of being a communist by the FBI as an excuse to deport him and his family. 

There is an instance where Lily and Shirely are invited by some friends at school to a picnic. They go and have a good time. Afterwards, Lily’s parents confront her and tell her that her father is being investigated at work because of this picnic. Apparently, the club Lily and Shirley’s classmates are in is actually a youth communist organization and Lily’s parents tell her to never associate with them again unless she wants terrible things to happen to her family.

Throughout this book Lily is discovering who she is, and who she loves. She realizes that if she wants to explore some parts of herself she must do so in secret otherwise she would put herself and her family in harm’s way. 

This book contains many short chapters which makes it somewhat easy to read. The prose is not especially complicated which also makes the book easier to read. There is some offensive language as would be expected given the time period. The narration is intended to be consistent with the time period of the book and the narrator sometimes uses offensive language such as the n-word to refer to characters in scenes. The 3rd person narrator serves as an extension of Lily and speaks in ways that would be expected given the circumstances. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy teen romance and historical fiction.

Length: 416 pages

Perspective: 3rd-Limited

Tense: Past  

Kindle Unlimited: No

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Night-at-Telegraph-Club/dp/0525555250